Kyiv leadership slams Saakashvili for "attack on Ukrainian statehood"

Kyiv leadership slams Saakashvili for
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By bne IntelliNews September 11, 2017

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko slammed former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili on August 11, who defied the president by entering Ukraine without a valid passport the day before accompanied by a supporters and a bevvy of Ukrainian lawmakers. 

The president has been embarrassed and his position weakened by Saakashvili's stunt, after Poroshenko cancelled his one-time ally's citizenship by decree in July. Poroshenko said he believes that those who "violate the state border" must face "an absolutely clear legal responsibility", according to a statement published by his media office on September 11, a day after Saakashvili and his Ukrainian supporters have broken through a cordon of Ukrainian law enforcers at the Ukrainian-Polish state border.

"It doesn’t matter who violates the state border - either militants in the east, or state mongers in the west. There must be an absolutely clear legal responsibility," Poroshenko said. "I think that our border guards who proved themselves during the anti-terrorist operation [in the Donbas region] did the right thing when they refrained from using weapons although they had the full right to use them. They didn’t permit the instigation of a conflict inside the country, which those state mongers were striving for."

Ukraine's former prime minister and Batkivschyna (Fatherland) parliamentary faction leader Yulia Tymoshenko, who is leading the polls in the war-torn country, was front and centre during Saakashvili's return to Ukraine. Tymoshenko is amongst many opposition leaders that would like to see early elections thanks to the fact that Poroshenko's popularity rating is currently under 2%, according to some polls. However, it is unclear how those politicians who remain in the opposition to Poroshenko, could achieve early parliamentary elections at the moment.

"To my mind, this incident [at the border] requires no political comments. We should comment and will comment [this situation] exclusively in the legal field," Poroshenko said.

He added that he issued a special decree in July to terminate his citizenship on the basis of the submission by the State Migration Service, which "clearly set forth the verified facts of falsification and provision of inaccurate information during the procedure of obtaining citizenship," according to the presidential media office.

On September 11, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said in a separate statement that the crossing of the Ukrainian border by force is "as an attack on the Ukrainian statehood", and those who organised this break" must be held liable".

"I would say nothing about Saakashvili, who has his own goals and motives," Groysman wrote on his Facebook page. "I am speaking of the populist politicians who follow the principle 'the worse things are, the better."

Meanwhile, Saakashvili said the same day that he is currently located in the territory of Ukraine on a legal basis. "This morning, as it should be according to the law, my lawyer came to the Migration Service of Ukraine and brought my application," Interfax news agency  "That is, I am now staying absolutely legally in the Ukrainian territory," he added. 

"I have applied for protection to the Ukrainian state. And the Ukrainian state should now solve in court my request for protection from the Ukrainian state," Saakashvili added during a press conference in the western city of Lviv.

 

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